


In restless dreams (I walked alone)

by LadyRhiyana



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Pining Thor (Marvel), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 05:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20902727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: Loki is ghostly pale, trembling still, with wild, haunted eyes. But as Thor watches he draws in a long breath, straightens, and regains the illusion of composure.“Really, brother,” Loki says. “I don’t know why you doubt me.”





	In restless dreams (I walked alone)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence".

When Thor was a boy he spent long months trying to master the first and most basic of spells. Loki – to whom seidr had always come easily – had taunted him without mercy, but Thor had persevered until he could finally call a tiny wisp of fire. 

To this day, it is the only spell he knows.

Who will remember that now? 

Asgard is gone. His mother is dead. His father. Loki is – 

There is no one left to remember their childhood victories and defeats, their squabbling and their shared laughter and the lives they once led. 

** 

Loki has feigned death before, of course. He has lied and deceived and misled until Thor came to doubt everything, especially the evidence of his eyes and hands. Loki the Trickster, Loki the Lie-Smith, Loki the master of illusion – but there was something so terribly final about the way he fell to the deck, boneless, his eyes blank and empty. 

** 

Thor is in New York when he feels the chill brush of seidr on the back of his neck. 

He knows it immediately for Loki’s. He has known the touch of it all his life. It wakes him from his sleep; it haunts him in his waking hours, brushing against him on the street; he tastes it in the air and smells the ozone tang of it on the wind. 

Now that he’s actively seeking it out, he sees runes and enchantments written in Loki’s hand in the graffiti splashed across the subway walls, in grimy, shadowed alleyways, in the secret, hidden places of the great city. 

_See the mad one,_ the pigeons say, circling in the sky. _Lost, lost,_ they whisper mournfully, _lost in the cold dark._

Thor follows the scrawled graffiti through a maze of abandoned buildings, following the maddening, elusive trail of seidr like a lost traveller chasing a will-o-the-wisp. 

**

Nine days and nights he searches. 

On the ninth night, as the trail grows colder and fades, the darkness closes in on him and he can hear whispering and chittering in the shadows, see tiny pinpricks of eyes reflected in the night. 

The air is chill and silent, and he conjures up a tiny wisp of flame, flickering dimly in the darkness. The sound of his rasping breath is loud in his ears. 

And then he sees: 

A lone streetlight, the bulb flickering erratically, casting a dim golden halo in the dark night. A lone figure huddles beneath the light, long dark coat and tangled black hair, trembling. Trailing streamers of seidr emanate from him, tattered and torn, and the shadows are drawn to the spilled magic. 

“Loki?” Thor breathes, hurrying over to kneel by him. 

The approaching shadows hiss and draw back in the night. 

“Brother,” Thor says, shaking the huddled form by the shoulders. “Brother, can you hear me?”

Under his hands, the lone figure stirs and slowly lifts his head. 

Loki’s eyes are green and hazed with madness. But as Thor calls him and presses the tiny, flickering flame of his magic against him, trying desperately to warm him, awaken him, a distant focus returns – those mad eyes narrow, and a flicker of light returns to them. 

Stripped of his armour of sly wit and elusive humour, Loki is a shivering, pitiful creature. But even as Thor grasps his brother in his arms and enfolds him in warmth and what little magic he has, he can feel the consciousness returning. 

It starts with a drawn-in breath, and a slow awareness of self. Then comes the tightening of the tattered, spilling magic. Then comes, for the first time, the realization of thought – and the inevitable stiffening in Thor’s embrace. 

“Let go of me, you oaf,” Loki says.

Thor releases him. 

“Are you really here?” he asks.

Loki is ghostly pale, trembling still, with wild, haunted eyes. But as Thor watches he draws in a long breath, straightens, and regains the illusion of composure. Soon enough, despite his tangled hair and torn clothes, Thor’s unknowable brother stands before him once more, smiling slyly, the light of cruel mischief in his eyes. 

It’s all a lie, of course. Thor’s hand still encircles one of his wrists, and he can feel Loki’s swift-racing pulse, feel him wracked by invisible tremors. 

But he’s here. He’s _alive_. 

“Really, brother,” Loki says. “I don’t know why you doubt me.”


End file.
